The fact that MEINS has a professional orientation justifies the existence of the External Internships (compulsory) module in which the student completes 375 hours of work in an assigned entity. Internships take place during the second semester.
Curricular internships have become an essential tool for preparing undergraduate and graduate students for employment. The aim of this module is to help MEINS students to be professionally trained through field experience linked to social transformation projects. These projects may be either in the development phase by the entities that will host the master's students, or in the design phase, in this case the students will participate in the genesis and initial project development. The design of the project can be done individually or collectively.
The characteristics of the internship module make it unique within the syllabuses of official master’s degrees. While the rest of the modules generally assess knowledge (although skills and abilities are also developed) in a curricular internship module, the student acquisition of (specific or transversal) competencies are evaluated
- Practice the theoretical knowledge acquired in the different subjects studied during the master's degree, and thus be able to complement the academic training received in the classroom.
- Provide students with a direct approach to the professional and business world that allows them to identify the professional profile most appropriate to their skills and competences acquired during their academic training.
The external internships are held in different organizations – public administration, companies, cooperatives, foundations, associations, insertion companies - with whom collaboration agreements have been established.
The content of the internship will vary and will depend on the character of the receiving organization and the required profile of the students. In any case, the UAB academic tutor will ensure that this content focuses on the development of activities in which students can apply the knowledge acquired in the classroom and learn significantly in a professional environment. In this sense, given the qualified and multidisciplinary profile of the MEINS students, the tasks that the trainees will carry out should be related to the following:
- Support the design of organizational strategic plans oriented to social transformation, adding students in teams responsible for the preparation of plans.
- Design of social transformation projects
- Support the management of existing social transformation projects. Creating teams of students in charge of monitoring projects in the implementation phase.
- Evaluation of social programs, based on the analysis of the social impact or program evaluation, either with quantitative or qualitative methodology. The students could design the evaluation methodologies, perform the fieldwork, and analyze the results.
The evaluation plans, projects and activities in which the students of the master's degree will carry out their practices can be located in any area of action with a social impact, such as: educational, professional, cultural, religious, social, environmental, health, cooperative, and sports (there may be other possibilities beyond this list).
Information session: Once the course has started, the coordination of the internship module will organize an informative session explaining its operation, and its main characteristics. All the documentation provided in this session can be found in the Moodle virtual teaching space.
Internships allocation process:
- Presentation of available internship places: the coordination of the module informs about the available places in a session addressed to the students. In this session, the students receive information about the collaborating entities, the profile of the places offered and the schedule of tutorials where the student, together with his tutor, can choose the internship place.
- Selection. Each student selects an unlimited number of internships from the available offer, and sorts the selection according to their preferences (1 preferred option, 2 next preferred option, and so on).The selection criteria used by the Master's Commission will be based on the following criteria:
- (The average grade of the Master student's academic record (mark of 10);
- Having completed the Minor in Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation will award an additional 0.5 points over the average academic record (calculated out of 10).In case the student (a) has selected a number of internships less than the total of the internship offer; and (b) the average grade in the academic record (including the Minor complement) does not allow the student accesses one of the selected internships, the student will be assigned by the Master's Commission to one internship.
- Schedule of tutorials: The order established in accordance with the previous point also serves to determine the schedule of tutorials. During the mentoring, the student confirms the assigned place of external internships with the approval of his/her academic tutor.
- Delivery of documentation: the coordination of the module delivers to the students the documentation, with three copies signed by the master coordinator, the specific agreement and the business card containing the contact person's data. Once the documentation is given to the student, he or she must contact the company.
Academic tutor assignment: The coordinators of the module of External Internship assign an academic tutor to each student. This tutor advises and professionally guides the student.
Following-up of professional internships: the company tutor guides the student during the internship in the company. The academic tutor supervises the correct development of the student's internship and manages any possible issue that may arise during the internship period.
Delivery of the documentation and evaluation of the internships: the student, at the end of his internship, sends the documentation to his/her academic tutor. This documentation consists of an external tutor evaluation sheet, which evaluates the tasks performed by the student, and the internship report made by the student, and a self-evaluation. The academic tutor will issue a final grade for the internship in accordance with the documentation and following the criteria established in the teaching guide.
